Tonya and PQBON's WebLog

Excitement with my hand

After a year and a half of dealing with my leg, I have an appointment to get it X-rayed again next week. At this point it is probably going to be considered healed. My arm is a different appendage entirely.

This week I had a tumor cut out of my middle finger on my injured arm. Since my arm ortho is a hand and arm expert he didn't refer me to anyone and decided to do it himself. (I was happy to let him do it. He is a hand specialist so I trust him to use a scalpel on a finger more then most.) Before the procedure he asked me about my arm. I reported the return of pain in my wrist. He frowned and made note to follow up on it.

At my first follow up on the tumor he did. (Oh, the tumor was a benign fibroid and finger seems to be healing fine after removal.) He scrutinized my old X-rays and did a pool of ROM (Range Of Motion) tests for pain and instability. It turns out my ulna is now a little longer then it should be. This is coupled with damage to the ligament that holds the radius and ulna together at the wrist end. My options are limited to fix this.

The first step is to get a bone scan. This is a 2 hour process that will show how the bone and tissue in the region is doing. Then after that they schedule me for surgery. It will start out as orthroscopy of the damaged ligament. Depending on the extent of the damage the finale will be different. The first option is to fix the ligament and shorten the ulna. This will mean removing the plate that is in the now and replacing it with a different one at the same time sectioning the bone so it will be shorter. The second option is to fuse the end of the radius and ulna together with a screw to form a pan for the wrist. I know, you all thinking that that means I will not be able to twist my arm. It doesn't, because they also take a section out of the ulna so there will be a gap between the shaft and the end. This means my ulna will be a "floating" bone in my arm. Most of the time this works great. Sometimes this leads to instability of the ulna. It also means my hand will only be connected to my elbow by one bone.

Right now the only thing I know is that my finger didn't have cancer and that I'm going to have more major surgery on my arm/wrist since the pain is getting rather severe.

Posted by pqbon at July 23, 2004 3:28 PM | TrackBack